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What do you consider the last "early" Beatles album? (Classify the Beatles albums by era)
8 August 2014
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Zig
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a-hard-days-night-ringo-8 Your heading in the right direction.

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8 August 2014
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ScrambledEggs
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I have to agree with most people that it is Help

8 August 2014
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Starr Shine?
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I think it is A Hard Days Night

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IMO, the “early Beatles” phase is Please Please Me through Help !, the middle period is Rubber Soul through Magical Mystery Tour , and the late period is The White Album through Let It Be . So Help ! is the last early Beatles album.

Rubber Soul is not an “early Beatles” album, but it has what I would consider to be a couple of “early Beatles” songs

10 August 2014
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I agree with the majority that it’s “Help !”, and I’m not going to repeat all the good reasons why, that have already been posted, ’cause I’m lazy.

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10 August 2014
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I would say the last early album “Help !”. But IMO, there are 4 periods of The Beatles

Anyways, that’s just what I think.

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10 August 2014
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@paulramon1962 I notice in another thread that you like to divide the albums in to eras. This might be a thread that you would like to peruse.

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11 August 2014
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There are many ways the Beatles music can be divided. The most blatantly obvious one would be album by album, since consistency didn’t exactly exist between any two. Then again, you could go by the division given by the Apple releases of the Red and Blue Album , which would put the two distinct ‘eras’ as being 1962-1966 and 1966-1970. This one is most convenient for me, but I tend to put the cutoff as Revolver

If we are looking stylistically at the songwriting and not just at the overall compositions of the albums, then we can dig a little deeper. Each Beatle had their own unique periods of writing whilst in the group. I would call “The Early Days ” the time when John and Paul were writing mostly together. This would extend from their first meeting in October of ’57 until approximately A Hard Day’s Night . Though they did write together after this point, it was not as expansive as it was prior to the album.

Paul McCartney ‘s early solo compositions range from cutesy to rocking, but I feel that of the three writing Beatles, he was the most consistent. Example: A Paul song from Help ! and a Paul song from Rubber Soul sound fairly similar, as do songs from Rubber Soul to Revolver . There are more divisions, however. It could very well be argued that the *ahem* Dylan albums (Help ! and Rubber Soul ) are more “early” sounding than the acid albums (Revolver and Sgt. Pepper ). I would say that Paul’s most drastic change comes between Rubber Soul and Sgt. Pepper , with Revolver being his transitory album. Penny Lane /Sgt. Pepper was about the time where, for me at least, he really embraced the far out sounds typical of the period. I don’t see too much difference in Paul’s writing between India and the End; as I said, I consider him the most consistent writer of the bunch. His writing during the breakup shows anger (like the others does), but also sadness. McCartney (1970) kind of puts him back at square one, so to speak. The shock from losing his band necessitates his learning to play on his own, and this stretch of learning culminates in Band On The Run .

John Lennon has more divisions in his songwriting. I feel he was the one most directly influenced by Bob Dylan. His Dylan period started during Beatles For Sale , as he himself states that I’m A Loser is him trying to be Dylan. This extends thru Help ! and Rubber Soul , including songs like You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away and Norwegian Wood . Rubber Soul marked the end of Folksy Lennon, and Acid Lennon took over on the next album, Revolver . Unlike McCartney, John’s writing is a bit less consistent between albums. Example: A John song from Help ! does sound like a John song from Rubber Soul , but a John song from Rubber Soul doesn’t sound like a John song from Revolver . This could be due to the fact that he tried acid before McCartney did, but I’ll leave that as speculation. His Acid period lasted all the way until India where he started to show a bit more of his cheeky old self (What’s The New Mary Jane ). He experienced a bit of a mystic period here too, writing Across The Universe and Child Of Nature . His work on the White Album is horribly inconsistent, largely due to his meeting Yoko Ono during this period. How a beautiful, introspective song like Julia could end up on the same album as Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey is beyond me, but they did, as did the politically charged Revolution 1 . At this point, John began to explore more political and social issues in his work (McCartney did too, as evidenced in Blackbird , but never to the same extent Lennon did). Unfortunately, this period was broken up by his addiction to heroin in early 1969 during the Get Back sessions. His writing during the album was not his best, contributing Dig A Pony and Don’t Let Me Down (I Want You (She’s So Heavy) was demoed and partially recorded during this time) while the rest of the album is dominated by McCartney compositions. His slow writing continued thru Abbey Road , where he contributed Come Together , I Want You (She’s So Heavy), Because , and a few songs in the medley. Indeed, the songwriting juggernaut on Abbey Road turned out to be Harrison. Fortunately, Lennon was able to overcome his addictions, get into therapy, and write his best album ever, Plastic Ono Band.

George Harrison ‘s carrier is the most brief, unfortunately, and though we have a large collection of his songs written during his Beatles tenure in All Things Must Pass , it becomes difficult to date them as production by Phil Spector modernized the album for the period. At very least, we can generalize his writing with the drugs that were being taken. His early writings from With The Beatles to Rubber Soul showcase his desire to write love songs, and he didn’t get too bad at that. By the time he took acid and became infatuated with Indian music, his writing became the most overtly philosophical, and funnily enough, the most cynical. Love You To and Within You Without You display the former, while Taxman and Only A Northern Song showcase the latter. By his own admission, Harrison didn’t begin amassing a backlog of songs until the India period, but he always had a few lying around. The White Album gave us some variety with Piggies , Long, Long, Long , and Savoy Truffle , but the album did not showcase his best work, save for While My Guitar Gently Weeps . Let it Be features a few of his bluesy pieces in For You Blue and Old Brown Shoe (recorded at the same time), though he was blossoming at this time into the wonderful songwriter we all know during this time. Indeed, he showed All Things Must Pass , Something , and Let It Down to the Beatles during the Get Back sessions, as well as I Me Mine , which wasn’t formally recorded until the next year when the film was almost ready. Arguably, the best songs on Abbey Road are Something and Here Comes The Sun . Something is the ultimate culmination of Harrison’s love songs, while Here Comes The Sun takes his anger and stress over the breakup of the band and turns it into a song of optimism, a theme which carried on into his work on All Things Must Pass and Living in the Material World.

 

Well, that was only supposed to be a brief bit about the divisions of time, but it turned into more than I anticipated. I’d love to hear some opinions about it!

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15 February 2015
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paulramon1962 said
Well, that was only supposed to be a brief bit about the divisions of time, but it turned into more than I anticipated. I’d love to hear some opinions about it!

a-hard-days-night-ringo-8Ya, that looked way too long to read and was way off topic

.stay-on-topic

 

 Help ! was the end of Beatlemania! Their music matured with Rubber Soul & Revolver . http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk38/rickdelsie/The%20Beatles/parlunread_zps28270d9d.gif

  Screen-Shot-2022-10-04-at-7.52.07-PM.png   BEATLES Music gives me Eargasms!  apple01

15 February 2015
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Beatles For Sale for me also, Help ! is straddling the change. @paulramon1962 makes a good point, there were many individual songwriting changes which is why @Monkey Finger’s breakdown into driving forces is useful. Help ! was a consciously written-for project, the covers weren’t intrinsic to it (other than giving Ringo a song). Paul did very little on Beatles For Sale , Help ! was even stevens, John raced ahead again on Rubber Soul .

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2 March 2015
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Wahoo! I spend hours while doing dishes and not falling asleep dividing the Beatles’ albums into categories and sub-categories and sub-sub-marine-categories. One of my delightfullest pastimes! So: 

Categories

Early: 

Please Please Me through Help

Middle:

Rubber Soul , Revolver  

Studio Years (aka Late)

Sgt Pepper ‘s through Abbey Road  

Now for sub-categories. 

THE BEATLEMANIA YEARS

Early-early

Please Please Me , With The Beatles

Mid-early: 

A Hard Day’s Night , Beatles For Sale ?

Late-early: 

Beatles For Sale ???? Help

Middle: 

Rubber Soul  

<insert stylistic wild left turn> 

Late Middle (due to psychedelic similarity to Pepper): 

Revolver  

THE STUDIO YEARS 

Psychedelic Period: 

Sgt. Pepper ‘s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Magical Mystery Tour , the scraps that make up Yellow Submarine  

Fragmenting Period: 

White Album , Let It Be

The End

Abbey Road  

 

That’s a bit complicated, isn’t it? Apples if you read it all: apple01apple02apple01apple02 

It would be easier to make a chart of some sort. The fact is that they all sort of bleed into each other, that there aren’t any clear-cut boundaries, and that’s why we have “last early albums” ranging from AHDN to Revolver . The “periods” were fluid; they didn’t get to a certain point, stop, and then continue. They grew every day. So I suppose the point of all this introspection is that it’s somewhat futile to go and try to classify them like species of insect life, but we’re Beatlemaniacs and we do futile Beatley things. Like opening whole forum threads dedicated to the re-sequencing of the White Album . SO… 

This is just my bloody opinion on it, enjoy reading my ridiculously long and wordy posts, and Keep Beatling!!!! heartapple01

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14 January 2016
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to me it’s Beatles For Sale .

I see Help ! as the starting point to their middle period.

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14 January 2016
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For me, it’s Help ! I find Rubber Soul and Revolver as the beginning of the psychedelic era.

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14 January 2016
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*reads above post by Silly Girl* *cringes* a-hard-days-night-paul-3

Yeah, that was an early one. ahdn_paul_01

I still stand by what I said though. a-hard-days-night-john-1

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14 January 2016
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natureaker said
For me, it’s Help ! I find Rubber Soul and Revolver as the beginning of the psychedelic era.

Yep! a-hard-days-night-ringo-15

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14 January 2016
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lillo78 said
to me it’s Beatles For Sale .

I see Help ! as the starting point to their middle period.

I agree.

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14 January 2016
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Silly Girl said
*reads above post by Silly Girl* *cringes* a-hard-days-night-paul-3

Yeah, that was an early one. ahdn_paul_01

I still stand by what I said though. a-hard-days-night-john-1

I agree although in my opinion, Beatles For Sale is definitely late-early (odd phrase).

I know it’s not on the album, but I Feel Fine was recorded in the same sessions and that to me is more advanced than AHDN .

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14 January 2016
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I really like the way @Beatlebug put the categories together.  I agree with all, except I would have Help ! as some of their earlier music.  

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I was the walrus said
I really like the way Silly Girl put the categories together.  I agree with all, except I would have Help ! as some of their earlier music.  

^^ You just made my day. a-hard-days-night-george-9 

That’s the first time somebody properly recognised what was at the time quite an effortpost, the cumulative result of months of introspection on the subject when I should have been sleeping. 

pepperland said

I agree although in my opinion, Beatles For Sale is definitely late-early (odd phrase).

Yeah, I think so too. But AHDN was a bit lonely in ‘middle early’ all by itself, so I put it under both categories just to be sure. a-hard-days-night-george-10 

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Well, I know not everyone agrees, but I think A Hard Day’s Night is the last early album.  I know most people are saying Help !, but a lot of that stuff sounds just like the stuff on Rubber Soul (hence why the American Rubber Soul works so well).  Also, No Reply , I’ll Follow The Sun , and especially I Don’t Want To Spoil The Party are very Rubber Soul -ish.  A Hard Day’s Night on the other hand, sounds a lot like the previous two albums.  Sure the songwriting has developed quite a bit, but it sounds pretty similar.  a-hard-days-night-george-10

So here is my grouping of Beatles “era’s”

(Early Era) Love Me Do sessions- A Hard Day’s Night Sessions

(Middle Era) Beatles For Sale sessions- Rubber Soul sessions. (My personal favorite era!a-hard-days-night-ringo-10)

(Psychedelic Era) Revolver sessions- Yellow Submarine /Lady Madonna sessions (also includes You Know My Name and Across The Universe )

(Late Era) White Album sessions- Abbey Road sessions.

 

Oh and Free As A Bird and Real Love are their own era which is dubbed “90’s Beatles”.  Why not? a-hard-days-night-paul-8

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